Week after hosting Amit Shah, Naxalbari couple join TMC

“I was inspired by the development work of (West Bengal CM) Mamata Banerjee… and we have joined TMC. Nobody has forced us to join the party,” PTI quoted Geeta Mahali as saying.

According to reports, the Mahalis went missing on Tuesday evening, and were seen with TMC’s Darjeeling district president and state Tourism Minister Gautam Deb at the party office in Siliguri on Wednesday morning.

“The couple have willingly joined the party. There was no pressure or intimidation. They have given a written statement on why they are joining the party,” Deb said.

Shah had visited the Mahalis on April 25, on the first day of his three-day Bengal tour as part of efforts to expand the party’s base in the state, and ate a traditional Bengali lunch served on a banana leaf in their house.

In New Delhi, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said a party delegation will meet West Bengal Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi over the issue.

Wondering whether the TMC’s “desperation” was caused by the CBI probe into Saradha chit fund and the Narada bribery cases, allegedly involving several TMC top leaders, Prasad said, “The investigation will not stop…. Bengal is seeing reckless violence and overpowering fear of the TMC.”

Calling it a “textbook case of revenge politics”, Prasad said, “Why should a tribal family be under such pressure? We condemn it outright. The BJP cannot be stopped like this.”

In Kolkata, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who had accompanied Shah and had also had lunch at Mahalis’ home, said: “This is a petty politics which shows bankruptcy of TMC’s policies. The couple were kidnapped last night and forced to join the party. They were threatened by TMC leaders.”

He said the BJP’s Naxalbari block president Dilip Barui has lodged a missing person complaint and a diary at Naxalbari police station. “The police refused to register an FIR,” he added.

BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said, “People who had hosted Amit Shah in Banerjee’s constituency, Bhawanipore, and at Gourangapur in Rajarhat (a Kolkata suburb) are living in fear. They might also be forced to join TMC just because they hosted our party president.”

Countering Prasad’s comments, TMC MP Derek O’Brien said: “The BJP spokesperson, who is also the Union Law Minister, has issued a statement about the incident in Naxalbari… Sitting in Delhi, with little knowledge of the reality of Bengal… His hollow words are economical on facts, and are expressions of a sore loser, because the people of Bengal have sent the BJP packing.”